To be honest, I felt a little awkward. I never managed to meet up with my friends. The baby got a lot of attention, but I mostly didn’t know what to do with myself. So I just stood there and tried to take up space — not hard to do with a baby on your back — and make the crowd look bigger.

I’m glad I went. I would go again. I’ve talked with a few different people about the phenomenon of large groups, and they have different rationales for their importance. One pointed out the impact of seeing a large number of people in one place for the same reason. Another talked about how the act of protesting changes the protesters. And everyone agreed on the need for sustained action.

There has been a lot written about why liberal protests don’t work: they are just a catharsis. They make everyone feel better, and then everyone goes home and goes about their daily lives. Detractors point to the Occupy Wall Street Movement as an example of liberal failure. I’m not sure it’s fair to characterize that movement as a failure, when we had a candidate like Bernie Sanders bringing so much national attention to many of the issues on their platform.

The problem is that change comes slowly. Protests help to make the problems visible to those not directly affected.

I keep meaning to write about my top three causes, where I want to put my energy over the next several years, and I keep getting distracted by the barrage of bad news, by how many things need attention. But women’s rights, specifically women’s reproductive rights, has always been one of my causes. It was probably my first cause.

I had a new-to-me experience today: Today I felt fear as a persecuted minority.

It is surreal to me to write that. I am a white, middle-class, Christian, straight, cis, property-owning, American-born woman. I’ve experience misogyny, sure. But I have never felt persecuted. I have the luxury of living an unexamined life if I so choose.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed off on a controversial law decriminalizing domestic violence as long as it does not happen more than once a year.

The new law makes the first offense of violence against “close persons” such as relatives or children an administrative offense, punishable by a 30,000 ruble fine ($500) or arrest for 15 days.

I drive by the Women’s Support Services office on a regular basis on my way into work. I used to volunteer for the 24-hour domestic violence hotline. I’ve heard the stories of women, in their own voices, late at night. I learned about Tracey Thurman, who, in 1984, successfully sued the Torrington, CT police (a town about a 30-minute drive from my house; I went there this week to have my teeth cleaned) for violating her civil rights for ignoring her reports of the harm her husband continually inflicted on her. I remember the work WSS did to advocate for a state statute to make strangulation a felony. The statute was enacted in 2008.

I know that Russia is not the United States. Not yet, anyway. And I know that there are plenty of countries in which women have a particularly hard time (oh wait! The United States is on that list!). Given the role Russia has played recently in our news cycles, and given our new president’s professed fondness for Putin, this hit close to home.

I write to express my sincere opposition to the confirmation of Jefferson B. Sessions as a federal district court judge for the Southern District of Alabama. My professional and personal roots in Alabama are deep and lasting. Anyone who has used the power of his office as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to our courts. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters. For this reprehensible conduct, he should not be rewarded with a federal judgeship.

I regret that a long-standing commitment prevents me from appearing in person to testify against this nominee. However, I have attached a copy of my statement opposing Mr. Sessions’ confirmation and I request that my statement as well as this letter be made a part of the hearing record.

I had the misfortune to read the remarks made by the current president at a luncheon in honor of Black History Month today.

In an attempt to scrub them from my brain, I thought I would share some information about Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a 19th-century African American writer. I wrote a chapter of my thesis for my master’s degree on her serialized novel, Trial and Triumph (1888-1889), so I hope you will indulge me quoting myself at times.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1825 to a free black mother, Frances Ellen Watkins spent the years after her mother’s death with her uncle, William J. Watkins, a minister and abolitionist. Little is known about Watkins’s father; some have speculated that he was a white man. She received a first-class education at her uncle’s school and worked as a seamstress and in a bookstore before joining the faculty of a school for free African Americans in Ohio in 1850. After three years of teaching, Watkins left education to begin her life’s work as a speaker, poet and activist for the equality and advancement of African Americans. In 1860 she married Fenton Harper and retired from public life. They had a daughter, Mary. After Fenton’s death in 1864, Harper returned to her speaking and writing. She was a member of the Underground Railroad, and after emancipation traveled extensively in the South. She joined a number of organizations of both African Americans and women, continuing to speak until she was eighty years old. During the course of her life, Harper produced at least eight volumes of poetry, one short story, three serialized novels, one full-length novel and numerous articles. Harper dedicated her life to the advancement of her race; as Foster says, “To Harper, literature was not separate from life. Her writing was but one of the ways in which she sought to live her convictions and to work for the betterment of the world within which she lived and the people with whom she identified” (135). Her commitment to a number of social causes—temperance, suffrage, civil rights—comes across in all of her writing, forcing her readers to recognize the intent of her work to shape society.1

Foster’s novel, Iola Leroy (1892), falls in the tragic mulatto genre: Iola, a mixed-race young woman, born free, who could “pass” as white, is sold into slavery after the death of her white father. Iola Leroy was one of the earliest novels written by an African American.

I chose the shorter, and earlier, Trial and Triumph for my study because the protagonist, a young African American woman named Annette, has aspirations of becoming a poet. I was interested in how 19th century women writers portrayed themselves — women writers — in their fiction.

In Trial and Triumph, Harper has her young poetess turn away from her writing to pursue “race work.” Readers in the 19th century expected their literature not only to entertain, but also to uplift. There was supposed to be a moral purpose to the story. Harper embraced this trope and turned it to her purpose, using her writing to inspire pride, hope, and self-respect in her audience.

Noting that “The literature they read was mostly from the hands of white men who would paint them in any colors which suited their prejudices or predilections” (240), Harper shows her reading audience the importance of the text they hold—written by a black woman, a member of the traditionally voiceless—to the battle for social equality. By authoring their own texts, African Americans have the opportunity to shape the images displayed in popular culture.

Trial and Triumph is such an interesting text, for its blending of genre, for its African-izing of the common stereotypes of white women, and for its unflinchingly optimistic portrayal of the prospects of Black America.

Harper creates the character of Annette, who is both a poet and an activist, in part to argue that a race capable of contributing to the cultural tradition of its nation surely has the intellect to contribute to that nation’s political processes. Literature is concerned with the nature and state of humanity. It addresses moral, philosophical and political questions of human experience and examines the phenomenon of society. Harper’s work stands as testament to the humanity of her race and thus argues for the inclusion of African Americans, including African American women, in the political life of America.

I had intended to write tonight about what I’ve settled on as my top three causes. I was going to talk about how hard it is to face this onslaught of bad news on a minute-by-minute basis, and how I had to narrow my focus, and that even three might be too many.

My social media feeds are overflowing with protestations. I’m seeing live feeds from spontaneous protests at international airports. I am half-paralyzed with fear and hopelessness.

But I’m trying to take a little bit of strength from the fact that my social media feeds are overflowing with outrage. That the people I know and love are not staying silent. That we are all speaking out. That maybe the whole of the United States of America has not lost its mind.

I feel helpless. I feel tied down by my geographical location and my responsibility to two young children. But I am looking for ways to resist. If all I can do is boost the signal, I will boost the signal.

This is wrong. This is not normal. Trump must be stopped. History cannot be repeated.

I can’t even believe I’m writing this. A woman’s right to make decisions about her own body was probably the very first issue that ever sparked a political thought in me. I was maybe 15 years old. Maybe younger.

And now, more than 20 years later, there is still doubt over whether women should be allowed to make their own decisions.

I read the most bizarre thing today. We started a hard copy subscription to the Sunday New York Times just before Christmas. I love having a real newspaper in the house, but I have a really hard time getting through it. Especially when the 2-year-old takes such glee in throwing it on the floor and dancing on it.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I’m pretty shaken by what I read.

I started to list examples of what these women said and why I found it outrageous, but it just felt wrong to me. Like I was making fun of them, which I’m not trying to do. I’m trying to hear them, but it is so hard when what they say just doesn’t make sense.

I also read an article about the Dunning-Kruger effect, and it immediately made me question my intelligence. Which is what it’s supposed to do, according to Dunning. It’s supposed to make you stop and think and question what you don’t know. And that’s what I was hoping to get out of reading these women’s explanations for why they voted the way they did. But the cognitive dissonance was too great for my ears, and I had to put it down.

I had a moment today, listening to WAMC, listening to The Round Table, and one of the participants pointed out that Trump says he’s going to bring us universal health care. They immediately began to debate what that would look like, if it was even possible, but I had a moment, just one, small, fleeting moment, when I felt a spark of hope. Maybe he will, I thought. Wouldn’t that be awesome?

I mentioned this to James tonight, and told him that as much as I’d like to hang on to that fleeting spark of hope, I realize that it is much more likely that Trump has no idea what he’s doing and is just saying what people want to hear. “I just want a president who’s not a fascist dictator!” I yelled in frustration. “Why is that a naive dream?”

But I realized, then, what these women found in him. For one, small, fleeting moment, they felt a spark of hope after Trump said something they wanted to hear. Whether it was about bringing back manufacturing jobs or taking care of natural-born citizens ahead of immigrants, something he said sparked hope in them, maybe for just one, small, fleeting moment. But, unlike me, they were able to hold on to that.

I’m struggling today, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, to come up with a plan of attack for surviving the week.

I admit my instinct is to hibernate, to put on a cozy sweater, brew a pot of coffee, and snuggle up with a book, ignoring the world outside.

That might be the healthiest thing to do, but I don’t think it’s the right thing to do.

The public schools have a holiday today, and I get a holiday from work. I have mixed feelings about this holiday. Yes, I agree completely that King deserves a holiday in his honor. Our country needs to pause every year (more than annually, but certainly not less) to remember the struggles of our own people for justice and equality. But I don’t agree with the way most of us observe the day, especially not the schools.

Private schools mostly have school today, and most of them devote the day, or at least part of it, to special programming. My high school, back in the 1990s, devoted the day to learning about the teachings of MLK Jr. and talking about race. Today, many schools shy away from true discussion and instead devote the day to service. Again, I have nothing against teaching children that community service is noble, but I don’t think it’s the right use of the holiday.

I had one conversation with my 6-year-old about the day, asking what she knew and explaining why I felt it was important. I had hoped to show her some video, or read a book with her, or do something more than just one conversation, but life got in the way today.

I spent the day bouncing around the Internet, trying to consume important information: I read the history of the WEB Du Bois Center in Great Barrington, MA. I reada lot today about John Lewis. I picked at King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and turned on the video of his “I Have a Dream” speech. I read post after post on Facebook of my network struggling right along with me. Searching, searching, searching for a way to make sense of where we are today, in 2017. How did we get here?

I also spent time nursing a sick baby and playing games with an energetic first-grader. I cooked a pot pie. I took down the Christmas tree. I promoted the vigils I’m working on. I did laundry and dishes and still didn’t manage to get the dining room picked up.

I sat down to write, hoping the act would help me sort out the jumble of my head. Usually, it does. Usually, I can count on writing to make sense of my thoughts.

It doesn’t seem to have helped much.

I want to make a pledge to write every day this week. I think my brain is going to need it, even if I don’t figure it all out by the end of the post.

Maybe, at the very least, I’ll figure out a fitting way to spend my day on Friday.

Coverage for men and women has varied dramatically through the years and among insurance carriers. The ACA brought about universal coverage of birth control for women, but insurance companies are not required to cover any type of male birth control. And, if you work for a religious institution, it’s possible that your insurance plan might be exempt from this mandate.

Despite all the loopholes and exceptions, the birth control mandate has been a hugely positive part of the ACA.

Now I’m going to get personal.

James and I are agreed that two children is the right number of children for our family. Our house has no more bedrooms, our cars have no more seats, our salaries can’t stretch any farther. Two is perfect for us.

Before our second was born, James decided that he would like to have a vasectomy. We both agreed that we wanted a reliable, long-term, preferably permanent, birth control solution. James felt that, since I had been the one to birth the babies, and since a vasectomy is an out-patient, in-office procedure, it made sense for our family. I agreed, and supported him.

Then, after looking more carefully at our schedule of benefits, James discovered that vasectomies are not covered by our insurance.

We stayed in limbo for the better part of a year, knowing that our insurance provider was going to change in a few months. We were hopeful that maybe the new plan would cover vasectomies.

Then Trump won the election, and everything health care related was thrown into uncertainty.

I had been resistant to considering an IUD (intrauterine device), mostly because the idea of having something inserted into my uterus kinda squicked me out. Ironic, considering my uterus has played host to two foreign entities for extended periods of time, but that’s how I felt.

However, with Trump awaiting inauguration and Paul Ryan heading up a rabid throng of anti-women Republicans, I felt that I no longer had the luxury of turning up my nose at an IUD just because the idea of it makes me uncomfortable.

I made an appointment with my gynecologist for early December and asked for information about IUDs.

I knew there were two kinds: the Mirena, which uses a low dose of hormones, and the Paragard, a copper, non-hormonal option. Based on my past experience with hormonal birth control pills, I was pretty sure I wanted the Paragard. My doctor agreed with me.

I have a great doctor. He explained the differences between the two, how they work, their effectiveness, how long they last, expected side effects, how it is inserted, how it is removed. We talked for probably 30 minutes. At the end of our conversation, I felt pretty comfortable with my decision to get the Paragard.

The one thing that worried me, though, was his description of the pain I could expect upon insertion. He compared it to labor: “Instead of having labor pains for hours, it’s like having labor pains for a minute.”

Having been through both an induced labor and an unmedicated labor, the prospect of enduring labor pains for even a minute was not exactly something I was looking forward to.

I went home, James and I discussed it some more, and I decided to go for it. I called my gynecologist’s office, they got preapproval from my insurance company, and I was instructed to call back when my period starts to schedule the insertion.

There are two reasons doctors like to insert IUDs during menstruation: 1. They can be sure you’re not pregnant. 2. The cervix is softer and more open at that time.

I ended up with an appointment the week before Christmas. Merry Christmas to me! I joke, but the timing was actually good, as I was off work, but both children still had school or day care. With the description of the pain I could expect, I was really not sure of how chipper I’d be the rest of that day.

I was not, however, able to schedule the procedure with my regular gynecologist. Instead, I was seeing the new female doctor in the practice for the first time. While I was thrilled to be seeing a female doctor (I had been skeptical of this practice’s three male doctors; turns out I love two out of three of them; not bad), I was not really happy with having the procedure done by someone I would be meeting for the first time that day.

The day came. The nurse who prepped me also compared the pain to labor. She spoke very familiarly about the procedure; it turns out she had recently had an IUD placed as well. But, she said, she has never had children, so she probably had more pain that I would.

I met the new doctor, and she immediately put me at ease. But again, she compared the pain to labor. I finally said, “Just because I’ve been through labor doesn’t mean I want to do it again.”

It turned out not to hurt much at all. Actually, I wouldn’t even call it pain, more discomfort.

The procedure has two parts: First, the doctor inserts a small rod to measure the depth of the uterus. If the uterus is shorter or longer than recommended, the device won’t sit correctly and might not work as advertised. Mine was the right depth. Yay!

Then the doctor inserts the IUD. The IUD is shaped like a T, and the arms are flexible. It is folded down into a straw, inserted, and then the straw is removed and the arms unfold, and the device settles into place.

No anesthetic is used, though it is recommended to take ibuprofen an hour before the procedure. No dilators are used to open the cervix. The entire procedure, from start to finish, took about 5 minutes. I had to remain lying down for another 5 minutes because “any manipulation of the cervix can lead to lightheadedness.” I did not experience that.

I had some cramping the rest of the day, but was able to control that with ibuprofen. After 48 hours, the cramping was gone.

I have to go back in a few weeks so the doctor can confirm that the IUD is staying in place and everything is as it should be. The greatest risk for expulsion is in the first month.

This has been a very bittersweet experience. I am angry that I was forced into choosing a form of contraception that I didn’t want because of which politicians were elected to office, but I am extraordinarily grateful that this option was available to me. I am angry at the double standard that forces the woman to assume the burden of birth control, and extraordinarily grateful that my husband shares that outrage. And, I am very relieved to know that my husband and I are able to decide for ourselves what the best options are for our family.

I am writing and sharing this to add a personal story to the political argument around health care and access to contraception. Our family is doing okay. We don’t have a ton of money, but we own a home in a great community, we have steady jobs, and our children are healthy and happy. All of that would be much harder, if not impossible, to maintain if we were not able to control the size of our family. We are excruciatingly aware of how easily the balance could be disrupted, and that many other families don’t have the stability we have.

This is why it is so important that our government protect our access to health care and birth control. The ACA actually helps real people of a wide variety of economic means. Planned Parenthood does so much more than offer abortions.

If you are in Connecticut, there will be a rally in support of Planned Parenthood at the State Capitol in Hartford on Wednesday, January 18, at 4:30 pm. Sign up here.

The Election was three weeks ago. Though I can’t really say the shock has worn off, life has continued. There was a fundraising dinner, Thanksgiving, a stomach bug. Deadlines loom at work, Christmas shopping hangs over us, and there are always bills to pay. Life keeps marching.

It is so hard to keep up momentum. It is so hard to process all the news stories. I am still living in a state of hyper-vigilance, made more acute by being trapped under a vomiting baby with nothing to do but scroll Facebook. And I. Am. Tired.

But this is the hump time. This is when I have to push really hard to get over inertia. Because my standard has been existence for a while now. Work, care for children, enrich as able, care for dwelling, nurture family relationships, sleep, repeat. And that’s just not enough. There is so much that needs to be done.

Thomason offers a review of Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, which has been getting a lot of press lately because it offers a glimpse into the demographic that is being blamed for Trump’s election.

According to The New York Times’s review of the book (I have not yet read the book, but I am leaving it on my to-read list), Vance offers a glimpse into the “white underclass” that he rose out of, and ultimately decides that, while they have the deck stacked against them, their misfortune is largely their own doing. He is a conservative, and as such, believes that hard work and determination are the answer. After all, he got out and went to Yale, so anyone can do it.

The book is so appealing to the so-called liberal elite who were blind-sided by Trump because it explains the pain of the white working poor. Many are calling for more understanding of this group, for the rest of the nation to listen harder to their troubles.

And then there are those who, like Thomason, point out that this group is, in fact, deeply racist, whether they intend to be or not, and that needs to be named and dealt with.

Aside: Calling a large group of people racist is always problematic, but in America, it needs to be placed within the context of our racist society. An individual who is also white and working poor may not intentionally discriminate against a person of a different race, but still plays a role in supporting the racist institutions in our country. One example of that is voting for a candidate who claims he will “Make America Great Again” by invoking images of the past when whites ruled the country and minorities were rarely acknowledged. The white Trump voter has the ability to ignore the very real racial divisions that vision of America endorses.

The major problem with Vance’s book, Thomason argues, is that the role of race and of the white nationalistic theories that support the world view of the hillbillies he is depicting, goes largely unexamined:

Vance’s view of Appalachian culture feels more opportunistic than sincerely white nationalistic. It allows him to portray Appalachian and Rust Belt poverty as an exceptional phenomenon, rather than a symptom of broader trends that could not be so easily ascribed to culture. As such, it conveniently justifies the existence of his book. This opportunism makes the book’s racial determinism all the more insidious: it makes it more palatable to audiences that might normally be on guard against explicit white nationalism.

I am still really struggling with these two opposing viewpoints. On the one hand, we’re never going to make any headway with the “white underclass” if we just keep telling them how racist and privileged they are. On the other hand, we’re never going to make any progress against racism if we don’t name it and talk about it.

I am still trying to figure out what the right approach is and what my responsibility to reach my fellow white Americans is.

Thanksgiving was going well enough, until the baby threw up all over me and my aunt’s brand new couch.

Things just got worse from there.

We are emerging from the stomach virus hell. All four of us were stricken, with James and the baby getting it the worse. Only the baby ended up in the ER. (She’s doing much better now; hooray for zofran.)

I spent a lot of time mindlessly scrolling Facebook while the baby glued herself to me over the weekend, and there are any number of topics I could write about now: NoDAPL, anything Shaun King has written in the last week, the hopelessness of a recount, and, most appropriately, how broken the U.S. health care system is, but ultimately, I’m tired.

So this is just a post so that I don’t forget what it feels like to write regularly.